Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38

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Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

The emotional responses of browsing Facebook: Happiness, envy,

and the role of tie strength
Ruoyun Lin ⇑, Sonja Utz
Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (Knowledge Media Research Center), Tübingen, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: On Facebook, users are exposed to posts from both strong and weak ties. Even though several studies
Available online 10 June 2015 have examined the emotional consequences of using Facebook, less attention has been paid to the role
of tie strength. This paper aims to explore the emotional outcomes of reading a post on Facebook and
Keywords: examine the role of tie strength in predicting happiness and envy. Two studies – one correlational, based
Facebook on a sample of 207 American participants and the other experimental, based on a sample of 194 German
Emotional contagion participants – were conducted in 2014. In Study 2, envy was further distinguished into benign and
Happiness
malicious envy. Based on a multi-method approach, the results showed that positive emotions are more
Social comparison
Envy
prevalent than negative emotions while browsing Facebook. Moreover, tie strength is positively
Tie strength associated with the feeling of happiness and benign envy, whereas malicious envy is independent of
tie strength after reading a (positive) post on Facebook.
Ó 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction and theoretical background 1.1. Psychological effects of social media usage

New communication technologies such as social media have
made social news more pervasive (Bazarova, 2012). Facebook con-
tinuously keeps users updated with a variety of posts, and passive
consumption of news updates is the main Facebook activity that
people engage in (Wise, Alhabash, & Park, 2010). The majority of
these updates are positive (Barash, Ducheneaur, Isaacs, & Bellotti,
2010; Utz, 2015). There is evidence for emotional contagion, show-
ing happiness can spread through the news updates on online
social networks (Coviello et al., 2014; Kramer, Guillory, &
Hancock, 2014). However, recent studies also indicate that expo-
sure to positive posts on Facebook may induce envy and lead to
depression (Steers, Wickham, & Acitelli, 2014; Tandoc, Ferrucci, &
Duffy, 2014) and reduced well-being over time (Kross et al.,
2013; Verduyn et al., 2015). Given that Facebook has over 1.35
billion active users (Facebook, 2014) and there are on average
1500 potential stories for users to check per visit (Facebook,
2013), we are eager to understand how Facebook affects users’
emotions and identify relevant factors that will determine emo-
tional reactions. We argue that tie strength (relationship closeness)
between the user and the poster is one important factor that
should affect emotional outcomes.
⇑ Corresponding author at: Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (Knowledge
Media Research Center), Schleichstr. 6, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. Tel.: +49 7071
979 347.
E-mail address: r.lin@iwm-tuebingen.de (R. Lin).
The use of social media such as Facebook can cause both posi-
tive and negative feelings, and the results of prior studies on the
psychological effects of social media usage are quite mixed. From
a long-term perspective, the use of social media offers benefits
such as the possibility of developing and maintaining social capital
and social connectedness (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007;
Grieve, Indian, Witteveen, Anne Tolan, & Marrington, 2013;
Sheldon, Abad, & Hinsch, 2011); Nevertheless, it may also lead to
negative outcomes such as social overload (Maier, Laumer,
Eckhardt, & Weitzel, 2012), an over-optimistic perception towards
others’ lives (Chou & Edge, 2012), and a decrease in life satisfaction
(Kross et al., 2013). From a short-term perspective, the use of
Facebook can evoke a feeling of flow, which is characterized by
high positive valence and high arousal (Mauri, Cipresso, Balgera,
Villamira, & Riva, 2011), and ‘‘joyful and fun’’ are the most common
positive feelings reported by users while using Facebook
(Krasnova, Wenninger, Widjaja, & Buxmann, 2013). Nonetheless,
the consumption of social news on Facebook can also trigger invid-
ious emotions such as jealousy and envy (Krasnova et al., 2013;
Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009; Tandoc et al., 2014).
Faced with mixed results from prior research on the psycholog-
ical effects of Facebook usage, it is important to differentiate
between interactive and non-interactive social media behavior
(Burke, Marlow, & Lento, 2010; große Deters & Mehl, 2013; Wise
et al., 2010). Previous research has shown a consistent relation
between using FB for interpersonal interaction and positive

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.04.064
0747-5632/Ó 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
30 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38
psychological outcomes (Burke et al., 2010; Hampton, Goulet,
Marlow, & Rainie, 2012; Kim & Lee, 2011). However, it remains
unclear as to what the psychological outcomes of non-interactive
Facebook behavior are.
1.2. Psychological effects of browsing Facebook
In this paper, we focus only on the psychological effects of pas-
sive consumption. Previous research has revealed that the more
time individuals spent browsing Facebook, the more negative their
mood was immediately afterwards, and this was mediated by a
feeling of not having done anything meaningful (Sagioglou &
Greitemeyer, 2014). Users may experience the feelings of exhaus-
tion and information overload when they are continuously brows-
ing social news (Maier et al., 2012). Also, being exposed to social
news on Facebook can evoke feelings of envy (Krasnova et al.,
2013). However, when it comes to momentary experiences, users
often feel pleasant and positively aroused when browsing
Facebook (Mauri et al., 2011; Wise et al., 2010).
In an exploratory study (Krasnova et al., 2013), participants
were asked to report their overall feelings after their most recent
Facebook usage: 43.8% of the respondents reported at least one
positive emotional outcome (such as feeling joyful/fun, satisfied,
informed, excited, and relaxed), and 36.8% of the respondents
reported at least one negative emotional outcome (such as feeling
bored, angry, frustrated, guilty, tired, sad, lonely, and envious).
However, it is unclear as to whether different feelings are triggered
by different posts or whether a post can elicit several feelings. To
the best of our knowledge, no research has been done that focuses
on momentary feelings of browsing Facebook on an individual mes-
sage level. To get a more comprehensive understanding on whether
reading (positive) posts on Facebook leads to more positive emo-
tions such as happiness or more negative emotions such as envy
and boredom, we examine the feelings respondents report per post
on their Facebook News Feeds. Before we turn to the underlying
processes, we examine the prevalence of positive and negative
emotions. Our first research question is therefore:
RQ1: What are the most prevalent momentary emotional out-
comes of reading a post on Facebook?
1.3. Underlying mechanisms and the role of tie strength
More importantly, we are also interested in understanding the
underlying mechanisms of the positive and negative emotions
caused by passive consumption of social news, and aim to examine
the role of relationship closeness in explaining those emotional
outcomes (mainly happiness and envy). In a social network con-
text, relationship closeness is often intertwined with the expres-
sion of ‘‘tie strength’’ (Gilbert, 2012): A strong tie is usually a
close friend or family member, that with whom one shares an inti-
mate relationship; and a weak tie is usually an acquaintance that
one does not feel emotionally close to. As tie strength can also be
measured by relationship closeness (Marsden & Campbell, 1984),
in this paper, we treat ‘‘tie strength’’ and ‘‘relationship closeness’’
as interchangeable.
On Facebook, users can be exposed to posts from a variety of
different people, including acquaintances, colleagues, best friends,
and family members. Thus, the emotional outcomes of reading a
post might not only depend on the content of the post, but may
also be influenced by the relationship between the poster and
reader. For example, if your best friend posts good or bad news
on Facebook you might react differently to this compared to seeing
an acquaintance that you haven’t talked to in years posting the
same news. No research has been done to examine the role of tie
strength in interpreting the emotional outcomes after reading a
post. Our second research question is therefore:
RQ2: What is the role of tie strength in explaining emotional
outcomes such as happiness and envy?
Facebook users often post about their positive life events, suc-
cesses, and entertaining status updates (Utz, 2011, 2015), and
sometimes even present themselves in overly flatting ways
(Barash et al., 2010; Mehdizadeh, 2010; Qiu, Lin, Leung, & Tov,
2012). Especially after reading these types of posts, feelings of hap-
piness and envy are common emotional responses. Two mecha-
nisms can explain this phenomenon: emotional contagion and
upward social comparison. The feeling of happiness can be
explained by the effects of emotional contagion (Cheshin, Rafaeli,
& Bos, 2011; Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993), i.e., the tendency
for two individuals to emotionally converge; whereas the feeling of
envy can be explained as a result of upward social comparison
(Festinger, 1954).
In the following parts, we provide further information on these
two mechanisms and explain why tie strength could matter for the
emotions of happiness and envy respectively.
1.3.1. Happiness: emotional contagion and the role of tie strength
Humans, as a species that are embedded in complex social net-
works, rely on the ability of sharing others’ emotions (empathy) to
engage in successful social interactions (Norscia & Palagi, 2011;
Preston & de Waal, 2002). The ability to catch or experience other’s
feelings leads to the phenomenon of ‘‘emotional contagion’’, which
has been described as ‘‘the tendency to automatically mimic and
synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements
with those of another person’s, and, consequently, to converge
emotionally’’ (Hatfield et al., 1993). Recent studies found that emo-
tions such as happiness can be transferred from one person to
another not only in face-to-face communication (Hancock, Gee,
Ciaccio, & Lin, 2008; Hatfield et al., 1993; Neumann & Strack,
2000), but also in computer-mediated-communication (Cheshin
et al., 2011; Coviello et al., 2014; Kramer, 2012). Therefore, observ-
ing others’ positive news on Facebook may lead to happiness via
emotional contagion.
Previous research (in offline settings) demonstrates that empa-
thy is more pronounced when the relationship between two indi-
viduals within a dyad is closer (Beeney, Franklin, Levy, & Adams,
2011; Norscia & Palagi, 2011; Preston & de Waal, 2002). This is
because kin relationships were extremely important to our ances-
tors’ survival. And thus, the ability to empathize with close others
would have facilitated social interactions (Norscia & Palagi, 2011).
In addition, based on the Perception–Action Model for empathy,
individuals with higher similarity and familiarity are more likely
to catch emotions from each other (Preston & de Waal, 2002).
Therefore, we would expect a positive moderating effect of tie
strength on emotional contagion even in the computer-mediated
communication context (e.g., when reading a Facebook post).
More specifically, positive news may lead to happiness, and nega-
tive news may lead to sadness because of mood contagion, and the
contagious effect is stronger when the news comes from a strong
tie.
1.3.2. Envy: social comparison and the role of tie strength
Envy, a pain caused by the good fortune of others, is another
potential emotional outcome of encountering positive news on
Facebook (Krasnova et al., 2013), and it might be a reason why
browsing Facebook can lead to depression (Tandoc et al., 2014;
Verduyn et al., 2015). Hence, we are also interested in understand-
ing the processes underlying envy.
The concept of envy is often confused with jealousy, but clear
differences exist: Jealousy arises when one has something but is
afraid of losing it or has lost it to another person, while envy arises
when another person has something that one does not have
(Parrott & Smith, 1993). Recent literature on envy further
 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38
established two different types of envy: benign envy and malicious
envy (Smith & Kim, 2007; Van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2009).
Benign envy leads to a moving-up motivation (i.e., achieving the
desired attribute by improving one’s own situation), and malicious
envy leads to a pulling-down motivation (i.e., an intention to dam-
age the position of the superior other).
Envy generally arises from engaging in upward comparison(s)
(Nabi & Keblusek, 2014; Van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2012),
i.e., when people compare themselves with better-off others
(Mussweiler, Rüter, & Epstude, 2004). Several researchers have
investigated the pre-conditions and underlying mechanisms for
individuals to experience envy. In Festinger’s (1954) classic theory
of social comparison, he claimed that people have a desire to know
about their own opinions and abilities, and when the reference to
the physical world is not clear, people tend to compare themselves
to others. In essence, he suggested that people select comparison
standards that are similar to themselves on the critical dimension,
in order to get diagnostic information for self-evaluation (Festinger,
1954). Similarly, Smith (2004) proposed four pre-conditions for
envy: being similar to the compared person, perceiving the situation
as self-relevant, the desired object is hard to achieve (or low per-
ceived control), and the feeling that the person does not deserve
the object (or one’s own inferior situation is perceived to be unde-
served). The latter two factors were found to be the key appraisals
that distinguished benign from malicious envy: The more a situa-
tion was perceived as fair and controllable, the more benign envy
rather than malicious envy was experienced, while malicious envy
was experienced when the situation was appraised as undeserved
for the compared person (Van de Ven et al., 2012).
Even though previous research has addressed the role of per-
ceived similarity with the compared person, it is still unclear what
role tie strength or relationship closeness plays in predicting the
feeling of envy. Tesser (1988) argued in his Self-Evaluation
Maintenance theory (SEM) that an upward comparison is most
threatening when the superior other is psychologically close, and
social comparisons to strong ties may be a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, self-evaluation can be damaged when individuals
are comparing themselves with a close friend who performs well in
a domain that is also important to them, which is called ‘‘compar-
ison process’’ in SEM. On the other hand, self-evaluation can be
improved when the close others perform well in a domain that is
irrelevant to one’s self-definition, which is called ‘‘reflection pro-
cess’’ in SEM. Hence, based on the theories of social comparison
and self-evaluation, we assume that the relationship closeness or
tie strength also plays a role in predicting feelings such as envy
in the online communication context; envy should be more intense
in response to posts of a strong tie (but only in a domain that is
important to self-definition).
To sum up, no empirical research has been done which focuses
on the role of tie strength/relationship closeness in interpreting or
predicting the user’s emotions (mainly happiness and envy) after
reading a post on Facebook. In this paper, two studies, one correla-
tional and the other experimental, are presented, aiming to address
the research questions on momentary feelings after reading a post on
Facebook and the role of tie strength. The basic research model for
both studies is presented in Fig. 1. We expected that tie strength
would positively moderate the effect of the content of Facebook
posts on users’ emotions, such as strengthening the feelings of hap-
piness or sadness; nevertheless, the role of tie strength in predict-
ing envy is dependent on the context and requires further
investigation. More explanation on how tie strength matters in
the case of envy is presented in the introduction to the second
study. Finally, because emotions after reading posts can also be
influenced by individual characteristics such as prevailing mood
and personality traits, we also measure these factors and include
them as control variables in our research.
31
Fig. 1. Research model.
2. Exploratory and correlational examination (Study 1)
2.1. Study overview and hypothesis
In Study 1, we examined the momentary emotional states of
Facebook users after reading a post, and investigated the role of
tie strength in predicting happiness and envy. We asked partici-
pants to report four recent posts from their News Feeds, as well
as their feelings after reading each post. As it is still unclear what
the most prevalent momentary feelings are, an open research
question (RQ1) was posed in this study.
With regard to RQ2, we expected a positive moderating effect of
tie strength on the relationship between the content of posts and
the feeling of happiness based on the mechanism of emotional con-
tagion. Therefore,
H1. Tie strength positively moderates the relationship between
the content of the posts and the feeling of happiness.
The role of tie strength in predicting envy is still ambiguous in
such an exploratory setting. As indicated by Tesser’s (1988) theory,
the effect of tie strength on feeling of envy is further moderated by
the compared domain. But it is difficult to know about which
domain the Facebook posts are involved with and whether this will
be central or not to the users’ self-evaluation, therefore no predic-
tions can be made with regard to the feeling of envy in this study.
2.2. Method
2.2.1. Procedure and participants
An online questionnaire for active Facebook users was launched
in July 2014. Participants were asked to log into their own
Facebook accounts and browse the recent updates in their News
Feeds. If they had previously read the recent posts in their News
Feeds before, they were asked to recall their feelings at the time
that they first read the posts; otherwise, they were asked to report
their current feelings after reading those posts. Every respondent
was asked to report the four most recent posts from four different
posters regardless of the source of the post (Facebook Friend vs.
Facebook Page). We asked participants to report the posts from
Facebook Pages (in addition to Facebook Friends), because that
information will be used in another separate paper. However, only
the posts from Facebook Friends were included in this paper. We
also limited the reporting to four updates because we were con-
cerned that too much repetitive reporting may lead to survey
fatigue.
In order to investigate the role of tie strength, we used the feel-
ings of happiness and envy as the dependent variables; both the
valence of post content (e.g., positivity and entertainment) and
the perceived relationship closeness between the participant and
the Facebook Friend were treated as independent variables.
A total of 207 respondents completed the questionnaire. A
majority of them (92.3%) were American. Respondents were
mainly recruited from a survey panel called ‘‘Tellwut’’; some were
32 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38

recruited by a post on Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/ Table 1

SampleSize/). Respondents’ average age was 41.7 (SD = 14.6), and Descriptive statistics in Study 1.

36.2% of them were male. Most of the respondents (81.2%) Variables n Mean SD Min Max
reported that they visited Facebook daily, and, on average, for Happiness (DV) 587 5.18 1.64 1 7
1 hour per day. Connectedness 589 5.14 1.74 1 7
Informativeness 582 5.04 1.75 1 7
2.2.2. Measures Entertainment 583 4.63 1.87 1 7
Envy (DV) 574 2.27 1.78 1 7
Content of the posts. Participants were asked to copy and paste Jealousy 576 2.20 1.72 1 7
the original post if they felt comfortable doing so. Then, they were Annoyance 571 2.15 1.66 1 7
asked to rate whether the content of the post was negative or pos- Frustration 577 2.14 1.64 1 7
itive, boring or entertaining, superficial or intimate, and factual or Positive content (IV) 598 5.51 1.87 1 7
Relationship closeness (IV) 598 4.42 1.97 1 7
subjective on 7-point semantic differential scales.
Mood 598 4.91 1.25 1 7
Relationship closeness/Tie strength. The relationship between the Self-esteem 598 4.76 1.54 1 7
reader (the participant) and the poster (a Facebook Friend) was
measured by two items: ‘‘We have a close relationship/ friendship’’
and ‘‘I would categorize him/her as one of my strong ties’’ (on a
7-point Likert scale, where 1 = ‘‘strongly disagree’’ and Table 2
Correlation statistics in Study 1.
7 = ‘‘strongly agree’’). A numerical average was taken to present
the relationship between the poster and reader (Cronbach’s Pearson’s Correlations 1 2 3 4 5
a = 0.96). 1. Happiness (DV) 1.00
Emotions. Participants were asked to evaluate their emotions 2. Envy (DV) 0.13** 1.00
with several items after reading each post; ‘‘I feel pleasant’’ and 3. Positive content 0.69*** 0.09* 1.00
4. Relationship closeness 0.32*** 0.00 0.22*** 1.00
‘‘I feel envious’’ were used as key dependent variables for this
5. Mood 0.26*** 0.10* 0.16** 0.20*** 1.00
study. The answers were given on 7-point Likert scales 6. Self-esteem 0.12** 0.25*** 0.09* 0.10* 0.37***
(1 = ‘‘strongly disagree’’ and 7 = ‘‘strongly agree’’), and it was also
*
possible to select ‘‘does not apply’’, which was treated as a missing p < 0.05.
**
p < 0.01.
value later. We also measured other momentary feelings such as ***
p < 0.001.
jealousy, frustration, annoyance, and connectedness for explora-
tory purposes.
Control variables. The mood state of the respondents before the the post and relationship closeness on the feeling of happiness,
questionnaire was measured as control variable. We also measured but left the prediction open for envy. In addition, we added prior
the respondents’ self-esteem with 6 items adapted from mood state and self-esteem as control variables. Two
Rosenberg’s (1965) scale (Cronbach’s a = 0.91), in addition to random-effects multi-level linear models are presented in
demographic information. Table 3. All variables were standardized, and therefore the effect
sizes are based on the unstandardized coefficients.
2.3. Results The first model was constructed to predict the feeling of happi-
ness, overall R2 = .54, Wald v2(5) = 398.37, p < .001. The results of
Among the 828 reported posts (4 cases per person), 598 posts Model 1 showed that both positive content, b = 0.62, z = 16.30,
were posted by a Facebook friend (as opposed to a Facebook page), p < .001, and relationship closeness, b = 0.09, z = 2.89, p = .004,
which is the focus of this study; the rest of the reported posts predicted the feeling of happiness, and there was a significant
(27.8%) were deleted in the following analysis. With regard to interaction effect between positive content and relationship
the likelihood of experiencing positive and negative emotions, closeness, b = 0.08, z = 2.22, p = .027, supporting H1. Specifically,
we treated an answer given between 5 and 7 (on a 7-Likert scale) respondents were happier after reading positive news from a
as experiencing that specific feeling. The descriptive results of the closer friend; similarly, the respondents were sadder after reading
emotional outcomes can be found in Table 1. Respondents felt negative news from a closer friend.
mostly positive feelings after reading the post: in 384 cases With regard to the second model, overall R2 = .08, Wald
2
(64.2%), the respondent felt pleasant after reading the post. Most v (5) = 35.32, p < .001, relationship closeness did not play a role
respondents agreed that they felt connected (66.4%), informed in predicting the feeling of envy: there was no main effect of
(63.7%), and entertained (53.7%) after reading a post. The feeling relationship closeness, b = 0.03, z = 0.68, p = .497, nor was there
of envy was found in 74 reported cases, which was 12.4% of the an interaction between relationship closeness and content,
total cases. In this study, being envious (12.4%) was the most fre- b = 0.02, z = 0.48, p = .628. Positive content was a significant predic-
quently reported negative feeling, compared with being jealous tor of envy, b = 0.16, z = 4.00, p < .001. In addition, Facebook users
(11.0%), annoyed (10.0%) and frustrated (9.7%). Overall, findings who have a higher self-esteem were less likely to feel envious,
from this study suggest that browsing Facebook is more likely to b = 0.25, z = 3.84, p < .001.
trigger various positive feelings as opposed to negative feelings
on an individual message level. When it comes to the content of 2.4. Discussion
the posts, the result shows that about 72.6% of the content from
the News Feeds were positive and 62.2% of them were The results of Study 1 showed that most of the posts on
entertaining. Facebook are positive and entertaining, which is in line with previ-
In the next step of the analysis, we examined the roles of con- ous findings (Barash et al., 2010; Utz, 2015), and positive emotions
tent and tie strength by running several multi-level linear models, are more prevalent than negative emotions when browsing
because the posts were nested in participants. A descriptive sum- Facebook. Tie strength was found to moderate the relationship
mary of important variables can be found in Table 1 and correla- between the content of the post and the feeling of happiness. As
tions between these variables are shown in Table 2. The feelings predicted by H1, the effect of emotional contagion was stronger
of happiness and envy were treated as dependent variables respec- when the tie strength is stronger; however, we did not find a mod-
tively. We expected an interaction effect between the content of erating effect of tie strength on the feeling of envy.
 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38
Table 3
Results of the random-effects multi-level linear models tested in Study 1 (unstan-
dardized coefficient followed by z values based on robust standard errors).
Happiness
Positive content 0.625
(16.30)***
Relationship closeness 0.095
(2.89)**
Positive content  Relationship closeness 0.078
(2.22)*
Mood 0.178
(3.46)**
Self-esteem 0.045
(1.08)
Constant 0.018
(0.47)
N 587
Note. Random effects models were preferred based on the results of Hausman tests.
All variables were standardized before putting into the models.
*
p < 0.05.
**
p < 0.01.
***
p < 0.001.
As the positive emotions outweigh the negative emotions,
browsing Facebook – at least on a message level (for a relatively
short amount of time) – is not as psychologically harmful as
described in certain research (e.g., Konnikova, 2013, September
10). Users are happy after reading positive posts from their
Facebook friends, and are even happier if the good news comes
from a strong tie; whereas envious feelings are more likely to be
predicted by individual characteristics of the user such as low
self-esteem, rather than relationship closeness. It seems that tie
strength does not play a role in predicting envy. For negative news,
Facebook users experience more negative emotions when it comes
from a strong tie than a weak tie. This phenomenon was recently
described as ‘‘cost of caring’’ in the context of Facebook
(Hampton, Rainie, Lu, Shin, & Purcell, 2015). However, one should
notice that individuals have to bear the negative news from their
strong ties in real life anyway, as Facebook might not be the only
communicational channel for strong ties.
Here, we would also like to discuss the strengths and weak-
nesses of this study. A strength of the study is that we did not
use a student sample, but a more heterogeneous sample. A limita-
tion is that it was a correlational study and therefore causality can-
not be assumed. For example, it is hard to say whether users feel
happy is merely because the post is shared by a strong tie, or it
is because positive posts are more likely to be posted by a strong
tie. Also, with regard to the null effects of relationship closeness
on envy, this could either be explained by a floor effect (the mean
value for the degree of envy is relatively low), or that relationship
closeness is not influential when predicting envy. In order to fur-
ther disentangle the puzzle, an experimental study is needed.
Moreover, previous research investigating the emotion of envy
on social media has not addressed the difference between malicious
and benign envy. In the next study, we differentiate between benign
and malicious envy in the context of Facebook, and add
‘‘self-relevance’’ and ‘‘perceived control’’ as additional control vari-
ables. Several hypotheses are proposed with regard to the role of
relationship closeness in predicting user’s happiness and envy after
reading a post.
3. Experimental examination of the role of tie strength (Study 2)
3.1. Study overview and hypotheses
In order to replicate and extend the correlational findings from
Study 1, we conducted an experiment with mocked-up Facebook
33
posts, controlling for the content of the post and manipulating
tie strength. We focus specifically on scenarios that are positive,
such as posts about ‘‘travel and leisure’’ and ‘‘success’’. These types
Envy of positive posts can lead to upward comparisons and envy
0.161 (Krasnova et al., 2013). In addition, most of the posts on
(4.00)*** Facebook are quite positive and entertaining, as a result of impres-
0.031 sion management motives and privacy concerns (Barash et al.,
(0.68)
0.016
2010; Utz, 2015).
(0.48) As previously discussed, emotions such as happiness are conta-
0.028 gious, and this effect is stronger for those who share a close rela-
(0.39) tionship. Therefore, we hypothesize a positive effect of
0.258
relationship closeness on the feeling of happiness, in order to repli-
(3.84)***
0.010 cate the findings of Study 1.
(0.17)
574 H2. The closer the relationship, the happier a Facebook user will
be after reading a positive post.
Research has shown that benign envy is an uplifting type of
envy: people want to be closer to the comparison other, regard-
less of the feeling of frustration (Van de Ven et al., 2009). In addi-
tion, Mussweiler et al. (2004) claimed that assimilation, i.e., the
self is assimilated toward a given standard, is more likely if the
target and the comparison other share a close relationship.
Based on the definition of benign envy and Mussweiler et al.’s
(2004) concept of assimilation, we assume that a close and inti-
mate relationship between the reader and poster helps to develop
good will and the motivation of levelling-up; therefore, benign
envy is more likely to happen when an envy-inducing post is
posted by a strong tie rather than a weak tie. Whereas for mali-
cious envy, we would expect an opposite effect: people are less
likely to experience malicious envy, a pulling down motivation,
towards their strong ties/best friends compared with other
less-intimate friends. As suggested by Tesser’s (1988) theory,
individuals may do things, such as pulling down other’s perfor-
mance, in order to reduce the decrease in self-evaluation.
Whether someone will get in way of other’s performance is
dependent on the closeness of the individuals and the relevance
of the compared domain. When the compared domain is not cen-
tral to one’s self-definition, the reflection process is more impor-
tant than the comparison process (Tesser, 1988). We assume that
most of Facebook posts, such as a vacation picture, are not
self-evaluation threatening, and less malicious envy is expected
when it comes from a close friend. Hence,
H3. The closer the relationship, the more a Facebook user will
experience benign envy.
H4. The closer the relationship, the less a Facebook user will expe-
rience malicious envy.
Although envy is a common emotion felt by most people, there
are important individual differences in the tendency to feel it
(Smith, Parrott, Diener, Hoyle, & Kim, 1999). For Facebook users
with higher dispositional envy, we would expect that they are more
likely to engage in upward social comparisons and experience
more (benign & malicious) envy after reading a positive post on
Facebook. Also, we included self-relevance and perceived control as
control variables based on the social comparison literature. As
described earlier, four preconditions are relevant: perceived simi-
larity, self-relevant, perceived control, and perceived deserved-
ness/unfairness (Smith, 2004). However, perceived similarity is
highly correlated with tie strength, and perceived unfairness is
an item used in measuring malicious envy. Therefore, we only con-
trolled for self-relevance and perceived control when predicting
envy. For predicting feelings of happiness, we used dispositional
happiness and mood as control variables.
34 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38

3.2. Method have a new iPhone’’ (Cronbach’s a = 0.74 for vacation scenario,
and Cronbach’s a = 0.45 for iPhone scenario). These items were
3.2.1. Participants and procedure adapted from the scales used in Crusius and Lange’s (2014) study.
An online experiment was launched in Germany on Sep 22nd, Both benign and malicious envy were calculated by taking a
2014. Participants were mainly German students who use numerical average of the respective three items. Responses were
Facebook at least once a month, and they were recruited via a local measured on 7-point Likert scales ranging from ‘‘strongly disagree’’
panel. The experiment took about 20 min to complete, and for their to ‘‘strongly agree’’.
participation, respondents were entered into a lottery pool (with a Control variables. Again, we treated the mood of the respondents
20% chance of winning a 10 Euro Amazon voucher). In total, 194 and the demographical information of the respondents as control
participants completed the questionnaire. We deleted the cases variables. Furthermore, dispositional envy was measured with an
that failed the manipulation checks (see details in the end of pro- 8-item scale (Cronbach’s a = 0.85) developed by Smith et al.
cedure session) and those who finished the questionnaire and (1999) and dispositional happiness was measured with a 6-item
important questions too fast (by excluding 5% of cases with the scale (Cronbach’s a = .88) developed by Shiota, Keltner, and John
lowest response time for specific pages). Hence, 146 cases were left (2006). One sample item for measuring dispositional envy is ‘‘feel-
for the analysis. The average age was 25 years old (SD = 6.3). About ings of envy constantly torment me’’, and for dispositional happi-
16.4% of respondents were male. About 82% of respondents use ness is ‘‘I often feel bursts of joy’’.
Facebook at least once a day. The average daily usage time is about We also controlled for self-relevance and perceived control in this
40 min, slightly less than that of the American sample in Study 1. study. In the vacation scenario, we asked the participants ‘‘In gen-
In the online experiment, participants were first asked to report eral, how much would you like to travel to places like this?’’ as a
three of their Facebook friends (a strong tie, a weak tie, and a mid- measure of self-relevance and ‘‘Currently, how difficult is it for
dle tie) that they were not living with or romantically involved you to arrange such a vacation?’’ (reverse coded) as a measure of
with. We included the third group of middle ties in order to create perceived control. In the iPhone 6 scenario, self-relevance was
a continuum connecting the two ends, strong and weak ties, as measured by ‘‘In general, how much would you like to have an
proposed by Huszti, Dávid, and Vajda (2013). Since this study iPhone 6?’’, and perceived control was measured by the question
was launched after the summer vacation for German college stu- of ‘‘Currently, how difficult is it for you to buy an iPhone 6?’’
dents and slightly after the launch date of iPhone 6 (Sep 19th, (reverse coded). These two variables were measured with a scale
2014), we adopted two realistic scenarios based on the findings ranging from 0 to 10.
of Krasnova et al. (2013): one involved reading a post from a
Facebook friend who posted a vacation picture, and, the other sce- 3.3. Results
nario involved a picture of a newly bought iPhone 6. For each sce-
nario, we randomly assigned one of the reported Facebook friends 3.3.1. Descriptive results
to it. Latin square (3  2) was used to equally distribute different The descriptive results for Study 2 are shown in Table 4.
type of ties into two scenarios, and each participant received only Because the nature of these two scenarios is slightly different, we
two scenarios, with each scenario assigned with one type of tie. analyze them separately. As can be seen in the descriptive sum-
Therefore, the scenarios are a within-subjects factor and tie mary, the vacation scenario triggered more happiness,
strength was a within- and a between-subjects factor. t(146) = 5.02, p < .001, envy, t(146) = 8.51, p < .001, and benign
For each scenario, participants were asked to report some gen- envy, t(146) = 15.22, p < .001 than the iPhone 6 scenario, whereas
eral information about the assigned Facebook friend and then to malicious envy, t(146) = 0.38, p > .05, did not differ across scenar-
imagine that this person just posted a certain picture on ios. Perceived self-relevance was much higher in the vacation sce-
Facebook (a mocked-up post was shown to the participant). The nario than iPhone 6 scenario, t(146) = 17.65, p < .001, and
feelings after seeing the post were recorded accordingly. After fin- perceived control was slightly lower in the vacation scenario rather
ishing two scenarios, the participants were asked to evaluate their than the iPhone 6 scenario, t(146) = 4.14, p < .001. Most respon-
emotional closeness to the three Facebook friends that they had dents did not show interest in buying a new iPhone, neither did
reported in the beginning of the survey. We further used this ques- they envy other iPhone 6 owners. Again, the mean values for the
tion as a manipulation check, by excluding cases with a wrong
order in ranking the perceived relationship closeness for strong,
middle, and weak ties. Table 4
Descriptive statistics in Study 2.
3.2.2. Measures
Variables Scenario n Mean SD Min Max
Relationship closeness/Tie strength. The tie strength between the
poster and reader (participant) was a manipulated variable, but we Happiness Vacation 147 5.93 1.41 1.00 7.00
iPhone 147 5.05 1.78 1.00 7.00
also measured the relationship closeness by asking ‘‘to what extent Envy Vacation 147 3.11 1.87 1.00 7.00
do you feel emotionally close to XX’’ at the end of the question- iPhone 147 1.70 1.35 1.00 7.00
naire. The answers were given on a scale ranging from 0 to 100. Benign envy Vacation 147 3.64 1.58 1.00 7.00
Because this item is also used as the manipulation check, the range iPhone 147 1.60 0.82 1.00 4.67
Malicious envy Vacation 147 1.32 0.62 1.00 5.00
of the scale is highly extended.
iPhone 147 1.29 0.66 1.00 4.67
Emotions. Participants were asked to rate their feelings after Relationship closeness Vacation 147 47.90 36.41 0.00 100.00
reading the post in each scenario. They indicated to what extent iPhone 147 52.23 37.14 0.00 100.00
they agree or disagree with: ‘‘I feel happy for XX’’ and ‘‘I feel envi- Self-relevance Vacation 147 5.43 2.82 0.00 10.00
ous’’. In addition, malicious envy was measured with three items: iPhone 147 0.70 1.56 0.00 8.00
Perceived control Vacation 147 2.95 2.90 0.00 10.00
‘‘I felt malicious envy towards XX’’, ‘‘I had negative thoughts about iPhone 147 4.14 3.60 0.00 10.00
XX’’ and ‘‘It is unfair that XX can go on such a vacation/have an Mood 146 6.99 1.85 1.00 10.00
iPhone 6 while I cannot’’ (Cronbach’s a = 0.84 for vacation scenario, Dispositional envy 147 2.13 0.98 1.00 6.00
and Cronbach’s a = 0.67 for iPhone scenario). Benign envy was Dispositional happiness 147 4.56 1.17 1.00 7.00
Age 143 24.86 6.29 18.80 65.10
measured by 3 items: ‘‘I felt benign envy towards XX’’, ‘‘I admire
Male 147 0.15 0.36 0.00 1.00
XX’’, ‘‘I wanted to try harder to have such a vacation as well/ to
 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38 35

feeling of happiness were much higher than the mean values of Table 6
envy for both scenarios. This suggests that the positive emotion Results of the regression models on happiness tested in Study 2 (unstandardized
coefficient followed by t values based on robust standard error).
of happiness is more prominent than the negative emotion of envy
in both cases, even though we had chosen scenarios that were Happiness (vacation) Happiness (iPhone)
likely to trigger envy. Relationship closeness 0.022 0.013
(7.52)*** (3.27)**
Mood 0.080 0.135
3.3.2. Hypotheses testing (1.26) (1.55)
Table 5 shows the mean values for emotions (happiness, envy, Age 0.039 0.042
benign envy, and malicious envy) based on the manipulated condi- (4.25)*** (2.28)*
tions (strong tie, weak tie, and mid-tie group). ANOVAs were used Male 0.208 0.123
(1.17) (0.25)
to test the group differences. In line with H2 and H3, there was a
Dispositional happiness 0.058 0.150
significant effect of tie strength on the feeling of the happiness, (0.66) (1.09)
F(2, 144) = 27.36, MSE = 1.21, p < .001, g2 = .28, and benign envy, Constant 3.126 1.735
F(2, 144) = 10.52, MSE = 1.48, p < .001, g2 = .13, for the vacation sce- (6.25)*** (2.41)*
nario. The results of Scheffe post hoc test showed that the mean R2 0.38 0.15
N 142 142
values for happiness differed for all three groups (i.e., happiness
*
for strong ties > happiness for mid ties > happiness for weak ties). p < 0.05.
**
The post hoc test for tie strength on benign envy was slightly dif- p < 0.01.
***
p < 0.001.
ferent (benign envy for strong ties & benign envy for mid ties > be-
nign envy for weak ties) (see subscripts in Table 5). For the iPhone
6 scenario, no effect of tie strength was found. In addition, we Dispositional envy was positively associated with both benign
found no group differences in both scenarios for malicious envy, and malicious envy, which is also in line with our prediction.
thus H4 is not supported. Self-relevance was a significant predictor for benign envy but not
Furthermore, we ran linear regressions by using the continuous for malicious envy. That means users are more likely to experience
measurement of relationship closeness as a predictor and includ- benign envy when it is more self-relevant. Perceived control had a
ing the control variables. T-values were estimated by the robust slightly negative influence on the experience of malicious envy.
standard error in order to avoid the problem of heteroscedasticity. That means users with higher perceived control are less likely to
Table 6 presents the results of the linear regressions on the feeling experience malicious envy. Overall, the models on malicious envy
of happiness for both scenarios. In both scenarios, relationship revealed that malicious envy is highly related to personal traits,
closeness was a significant predictor of the feeling of happiness, regardless of tie strength or self-relevance.
for the vacation scenario, b = .55, t(136) = 7.52, p < .001, and for Similar to the results of the correlational study, tie
the iPhone 6 scenario, b = .27, t(136) = 3.27, p = .001. Therefore, strength/relationship closeness did not show a role in predicting
H2 is supported. In addition, age also positively predicted the feel- the overall feeling of envy after browsing Facebook. Again, feeling
ing of happiness. envious after reading a post was more likely to be predicted by
The regression models for the feeling of envy are presented in individual factors such as dispositional envy and age.
Table 7. In line with H3, relationship closeness predicted benign
envy in both scenarios: for the vacation scenario,
b = .30, t(136) = 5.17, p < .001 for the iPhone 6 scenario, and 4. General discussion
b = .23, t(136) = 2.90, p = .004; whereas for malicious envy, relation-
ship closeness did not show any effect for the vacation scenario, 4.1. Summary of research
b = .05, t(136) = 0.49, p = .622 or for the iPhone scenario,
b = .05, t(136) = 0.54, p = .591, therefore H4 is rejected. In this paper, we aimed to explore the momentary emotional
outcomes of browsing Facebook on an individual post level, and
Table 5 we were interested in whether the relationship closeness between
Descriptive results of the dependent variables by group (mean values followed by the poster and reader can predict those emotional outcomes. In the
standard deviation) and ANOVA tests in Study 2. first study, we found that, in general, positive emotions out-
Scenario Strong Mid Weak F(2, 144) Bartlett’s weighed the negative ones after reading a post on Facebook. Tie
tie tie tie test chi2 strength played a role in predicting the feeling of happiness after
group group group reading a post: the closer the relationship, the happier one felt
Happiness Vacation 6.78a 6.12b 5.00c 27.36*** 53.10*** after reading a positive post; and the sadder one felt after reading
(0.51) (1.11) (1.66) a negative post.
iPhone 5.47 4.84 4.80 2.25 0.14
The second study manipulated the tie strength between the
(1.75) (1.91) (1.61)
Envy Vacation 3.57 3.04 2.77 2.30 1.42 poster and reader. With two mocked-up positive (envy-inducing)
(1.81) (1.84) (1.91) scenarios, we re-tested whether this type of news may trigger
iPhone 1.72 1.47 1.93 1.43 11.89** more happiness if it comes from a strong tie rather than a weak
(1.39) (1.14) (1.50) tie. To the best of our knowledge, this is also the first study to dif-
Benign Vacation 4.22a 3.86a 2.90b 10.52*** 1.43
envy (1.33) (1.59) (1.51)
ferentiate malicious and benign envy in the context of Facebook
iPhone 1.71 1.59 1.48 0.90 3.68 use. The results in the second study not only confirmed the prelim-
(0.97) (0.73) (0.73) inary findings of the correlational study in an experimental setting,
Malicious Vacation 1.33 1.27 1.35 0.23 5.13 but also revealed that tie strength predicts benign envy, but not
envy (0.62) (0.45) (0.75)
malicious envy.
iPhone 1.33 1.23 1.33 0.39 2.64
(0.66) (0.58) (0.74)
4.2. Theoretical implications
Note. Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 in Scheffe
multiple-comparison test.
**
p < 0.01. This paper provided some explanations for the mixed findings
***
p < 0.001. from prior research on social media usage (passive consumption),
36 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38

Table 7
Results of the regression models on envy tested in Study 2 (unstandardized coefficient followed by t values based on robust standard error).

Envy Benign envy Malicious envy

Vacation iPhone Vacation iPhone Vacation iPhone
Relationship closeness 0.007 0.001 0.013 0.005 0.001 0.001
(1.80)  (0.49) (5.17)*** (2.90)** (0.49) (0.54)
Dispositional envy 0.633 0.320 0.209 0.167 0.251 0.158
(5.37)** (2.68)** (2.19)* (2.76)** (4.22)*** (2.64)**
Self-relevance 0.243 0.343 0.294 0.187 0.020 0.049
(4.78)*** (4.19)*** (7.95)*** (4.70)*** (1.26) (0.92)
Perceived control 0.112 0.059 0.081 0.010 0.023 0.023
(2.53)* (2.48)* (2.31)* (0.63) (1.78)  (1.74) 
Age 0.052 0.003 0.004 0.025 0.010 0.005
(4.19)*** (0.30) (0.33) (3.19)** (1.82)  (0.72)
Male 0.091 0.105 0.256 0.126 0.297 0.014
(0.24) (0.44) (0.80) (0.69) (1.34) (0.08)
Constant 0.615 0.304 0.559 0.133 0.761 0.955
(1.21) (0.71) (1.35) (0.43) (3.53)** (3.73)***
R2 0.38 0.26 0.49 0.23 0.23 0.11
N 143 143 143 143 143 143
 
p < 0.1.
*
p < 0.05.
**
p < 0.01.
***
p < 0.001.

and filled the research gap in the emotional outcomes of browsing
Facebook on an individual message level. Krasnova et al. (2013)
inferred that the invidious feeling of envy on social networking
sites can lead to a decrease in users’ life satisfaction. They worried
that if too many negative feelings were triggered by envy-inducing
posts (e.g., vacation pictures), users might quit using Facebook.
However, the present study found that positive feelings are more
prevalent than negative emotions, even when Facebook users were
presented with a vacation picture, which is the biggest cause of
envy on Facebook based on Krasnova et al.’s (2013) study.
Moreover, this paper filled the research gap on the role of tie
strength in predicting the emotional outcomes of browsing
Facebook. We investigated the role of tie strength (i.e., the relation-
ship between the poster and reader) in interpreting or predicting
user’s emotions of happiness and envy after reading a post. Based
on a sample of 207 American respondents and a sample of 194
German students, we found that if positive news is posted by a
strong tie, users are more likely to be happy for their friends and
experience only benign envy, which is a positive type of envy that
has a levelling-up effect (at least in short-term). The finding on
happiness contributes to the theory on emotional contagion, and,
consistent with previous research, suggests that emotional conta-
gion is stronger when the relationship between individuals is clo-
ser. The finding with regard to benign envy also contributes to the
literature on social comparison and tie strength, by showing that
benign envy, rather than malicious envy, is more likely to be expe-
rienced when the relationship is closer.
With regard to the malicious envy, there was no effect of tie
strength. The null finding may be explained by a floor effect, as
the mean values for malicious envy were quite low in both scenar-
ios (M = 1.33). It may be due partly to the scenario design.
Malicious envy in real life is relatively low, and more extreme
manipulations are required to trigger it. Future research could
specifically focus on malicious-envy-inducing scenarios in order
to examine the role of tie strength in predicting malicious envy.
Malicious envy is more likely to emerge when the envied object
was perceived as undeserved (Van de Ven et al., 2012). However,
from a realistic point of view, not many Facebook users would
write posts in a way suggesting that their own achievement is
undeserved. The main goal of the present study was to examine
the feelings that are induced by Facebook use by using selected
scenarios (vacation and iPhone) that are more representative of
actual Facebook posts. We assumed that these posts, in most cases,
are not central domains for one’s self-identification, and we found
a lower degree of malicious envy than benign envy.
Furthermore, we would like to address the role of self-relevance
and the compared domain in predicting benign and malicious
envy. Self-relevance was a significant predictor of both envy and
benign envy, but not for malicious envy. Instead, dispositional envy
predicted malicious envy in our models. Taken together, this seems
to indicate that malicious envy is rather a personality trait that is
independent of situational factors such as tie strength or
self-relevance; whereas emotions such as happiness and benign
envy are more situational dependent (there is an effect of tie
strength and self-relevance, but no effect of dispositional happi-
ness). More fine-grained research is required to disentangle the
relationships between the tie strength and self-relevance. Also,
based on Tesser’s (1988) SEM model, there should be an interac-
tion effect between relationship closeness and domain-relevance
on envy. In other words, whether a close relationship magnifies
or dilutes the feeling of (malicious) envy also depends on the com-
pared domain. In this study, we only used scenarios, such as vaca-
tion pictures, that are more likely to be a low relevant domain for
most Facebook users. High relevant domains are usually related to
skills and performance, but we should also keep in mind that
whether a domain is relevant to self-definition is a very personal
and variable. Nevertheless, these issues are beyond the current
research question, and we hope future research can be conducted
to test these effects.
4.3. Practical implications
4.3.1. Psychological implications
The results from our studies have implications for teachers and
parents who are worried about young adolescents’ social media
use. Because the positive effects of browsing Facebook outweigh
the negative effects, they do not need to worry too much about
the negative psychological effects as long as the users do not
browse Facebook excessively (with an ‘‘appropriate’’ amount of
usage time). Also, we found that self-esteem and dispositional envy
played a significant role in predicting Facebook envy. For users
who have a high dispositional envy or low self-esteem, we would
suggest them do not obsessively use Facebook in a passive way.
With regard to the findings on the role of tie strength, one prac-
tical implication is that if Facebook users receive more posts from
their close friends, they will experience more happiness. Further,
 R. Lin, S. Utz / Computers in Human Behavior 52 (2015) 29–38
while individuals might experience envy towards their close
friend, it may be less detrimental as once expected (e.g.,
Krasnova et al., 2013) since benign envy generally motivates indi-
viduals to self-improve.
4.3.2. Applied implications
Because most Facebook users cannot read all the potential sto-
ries from their Facebook friends and pages, a News Feed ranking
algorithm was created, adjusting the sequence of posts rather than
using the chronological order (Facebook, 2013). However, it is still
technically difficult to determine what kinds of stories are rela-
tively important for individual users and what kinds of posts can
make users happier, rather than triggering negative feelings such
as envy (as described in Chou & Edge, 2012). It is often the case
that, even reading the same status update can lead to different feel-
ings for different individuals.
The research showed that the emotional outcomes of browsing
Facebook were significantly influenced by three components: the
content of the post, the personal traits of the Facebook browser,
and relationship between the poster and reader. Hopefully, these
findings can also offer some insights for the further improvement
of the Facebook News Feed algorithm. For example, the Facebook
algorithm can display more positive posts from strong ties to
Facebook users who have a lower degree of dispositional envy. In
addition, future research can also retest these results in other
social media sites such as Twitter or LinkedIn. We hope that these
studies together can contribute to the construction of a better
online-communication environment and eventually improve the
individual well-being of social media users.
4.4. Limitations and future research
Several limitations need to be addressed. First, the scenario of
iPhone 6 may actually not be the best scenario for triggering envy
in a German sample. Most of the respondents rated this scenario
low in self-relevance, and very few participants reported any type
of envious feelings afterwards. This is also a potential reason for
why most hypotheses were not supported by the ANOVA tests in
the iPhone 6 scenarios, as the average self-relevance in the
iPhone scenarios was quite low. Future research could also exam-
ine the relationship between self-relevance and happiness. Second,
the reliabilities of the scales for malicious and benign envy were
relatively low (especially the scale of benign envy) in the iPhone
scenario in Study 2. More research is required to develop a scale
for measuring malicious and benign envy that is robust across var-
ious domains (e.g. money, success, beauty, relationship, etc.). Third,
both studies rely on self-reporting as a measure of emotions. There
is a possibility that respondents might not be honest about report-
ing their negative/bad feelings (social desirability). This could also
be another potential reason for why the hypothesis on malicious
envy was not supported. Putting participants into a
third-person’s perspective might be helpful for measuring mali-
cious envy. Nonetheless, our participants do honestly reveal a rel-
atively high degree of envy and benign envy in the vacation
scenario (see Table 5). Fourth, we did not use the same item for
measuring happiness across these two studies. The item of ‘‘I feel
pleasant’’ was used in the first study as a way to measure an overall
feeling, and the item of ‘‘I feel happy for the person’’ was used in
the second study in order to be in line with the experimental con-
text. The target of the emotions was slightly different between the
two studies. Last but not least, whereas the first study is relatively
high in ecological validity, it is hard to generate any causality;
while the second study isolated other factors and controlled for
the tie strength, the external validity is low. We did not distinguish
participants who had already seen the posts from those who saw
the posts first time in Study 1. There might be some biases
37
between recalling feelings and reporting current feelings, as recall-
ing is not as accurate as reporting. In addition, there might have
been too much priming of the tie strength in the experimental
design, as we asked a few questions about the Facebook friend
before each scenario. Based on these limitations, future studies
should adjust the experimental design (e.g., by measuring the feel-
ing of envy in a third-person perspective, by using different items
for relationship closeness and emotions, or trying to avoid the
effect of priming), and also retest the external and internal validity
of this study. Finally, this paper only focused on the momentary
feelings of browsing Facebook, future research is required to inves-
tigate the implications for long term use of Facebook on emotional
outcomes.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we examined the momentary feelings after read-
ing a post on Facebook, and the role of relationship closeness in
predicting the feelings of happiness and envy. Over two studies,
with different methods (correlational and experimental) and dif-
ferent samples (American and German), we found that positive
emotions are more pronounced than negative emotions, and tie
strength moderates the feeling of happiness after reading a post
on Facebook, as well as the feeling of benign envy.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Nicole Muscanell for her valu-
able opinion and her efforts in proof reading. Also, we would like to
thank Albert Schilling for helping conducting the studies. The
research leading to these results has received funding from the
European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh
Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement
no. 312420.
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